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Comment by dbg31415 | Hacker News Reader

The rise of the super-casuals.

I'm not saying mobile gaming like Clash of Clans or Candy Crush are bad, just that... man, they aren't for smart people. Likely most games aren't, but playing World of Warcraft and Diablo and Starcraft required a lot of thought and theory crafting to feel like I knew how to be elite at them.

So I know Blizzard is mathematically right to focus on mobile gamers, I just really miss "the good old days" when I spent as much time outside of the game learning about the game as I did playing the game. I doubt I'm the only one, but I know that sort of thing has a limited appeal and over time the market has evolved.

I just miss it. No game has pulled me in like Diablo 2 or World of Warcraft. Games like Fallout (not the latest), XCOM, and Civ are great... but man, if I'm honest, I really miss WoW circa 2006-2010. Doubt I'll ever have a gaming experience like that again.

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I'd argue despite the posted revenue figures that no, it isn't right for Blizzard to focus on mobile.

They are a total no-name to mobile gamers, and mobile gamers in general don't care about brand and have no loyalty. They will play what their friends tell them to, which will almost always be and remain one of the top 10 titles with maybe half of said titles changing hands every year.

Yes, companies like Bethesda, EA, Activision, etc have the developer talent and cash to build games that could reach that top 10 app store status, but even they don't have the influence to buy their way there from Google, and the demographics of mobile gamers have very little overlap with traditional video gamers... at least in the audience they want, either very young children or middle aged adults that will spend all their free time on the one game constantly putting money in the slot machine.

If core gamers are going to dedicate themself to one title, its going to be a full featured experience, not a click bot braindrain.

So Blizzard is in large part sacrificing what gives their brand value (their appeal to core gamers) to enter a market they have no stake in or guarantee of success because they see other games winning the app store lottery to make fortunes on very little developer investment and want that money.

Its like being a business owner who sells their stake to buy lottery tickets. Sure, maybe you do win the jackpot of several hundred million without strings attached but you threw away reliable income for hard work to gamble with total chance.

>I'm not saying mobile gaming like Clash of Clans or Candy Crush are bad, just that... man, they aren't for smart people.

Alright bud, let's get back to letting people enjoy whatever sort of games they want and not attacking their intelligence.

My sister-in-law is a doctor, love's candy crush. She doesn't play it for the intellectual stimulation.

Just curious then, why does she play it? Isn't that a puzzle game?

I can’t think of a workplace more suited for small doses of escapism than a medical one.

> I'm not saying mobile gaming like Clash of Clans or Candy Crush are bad, just that... man, they aren't for smart people. Likely most games aren't, but playing World of Warcraft and Diablo and Starcraft required a lot of thought and theory crafting to feel like I knew how to be elite at them.

Clash of Clans has a lot of strategy so I don't know why you're using that as an example. Frankly almost any PvP game is going to have a lot of strategy. My friend who has scored twice as high as anyone else in the school in math competitions loved that game.

You seem to have this idea that smart people only do things that require they use their intelligence. I'd argue that is very much not the case.

>World of Warcraft and Diablo and Starcraft required a lot of thought and theory crafting to feel like I knew how to be elite at them

Outside of PVP WoW doesn't require much thought for the majority of players. Rotations can be automated through things like TellMeWhen and other addons. Then there are addons to tell you what gear is better, when to move, etc. Simming for the most part is a 'solved problem'. And that is only if you want to raid. If you have no interest in raiding you'd be able to do everything by just pressing 2 buttons.

Diablo, you'd be in the top 1% if you just google builds and grind your way there. It's mostly a time thing. And when they had the Ah you could "buy you way to the top".

Starcraft is a pure pvp game so it's slightly different. Skill requirements are probably similar to something like Clash Royal. Although CR can pay to advance (cards). It still requires some general strategy and has a meta.

What you are describing is quantum physics compared to mobile games.

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